Dvořák. Schumann

PERFORMERS:
Rudolf Buchbinder (piano) and Mariinsky Orchestra soloists

PROGRAMME:
Robert Schumann
Piano Quintet in E Flat Major, Op. 44

Antonín Dvořák
Piano Quintet in A Major, Op. 81

Robert Schumann’s one and only piano quintet was written in 1842. In the first months of that year Schumann had been studying works by Bach and Haydn and Mozart’s string quartets, and the composer was enchanted by chamber music genres for the first time. In the summer he composed three string quartets one after another, between August and October he wrote his Piano Quintet in E Flat Major and November saw the appearance another piano quartet.
The piano in the quintet was to be played by Clara Schumann, though it was really not typically associated with piano music written for women as it contains so very many heroic and dramatic passages. Each of the quintet’s movements is a kind of masterpiece. The first movement is remarkable for its virtuoso transformation of the dazzling main theme into a lyrical and truly romantic secondary theme with something left untold, as if striving towards the “beautiful remoteness”. The second movement is entitled In modo d’una Marcia, though its first theme also reminds one of a bleak early ballad. It contrasts with the inexpressible beautiful second theme and the stormy and dramatic third. In the scherzo listeners are faced with contrasts of equal depth and the performers with no mean technical difficulties.
In the finale, Schumann extends his hand to Beethoven (there is even a common shared theme with Seventh Symphony). Freedom of composition, unpredictable modulations and two fugatos – that is what attracted him to the great maestro. It is amazing how elements of Beethoven were included in the romantic world of the quintet so naturally.

Antonín Dvořák composed a vast amount of chamber music – he wrote as many as fourteen string quartets, while he produced two piano quintets, moreover both in A Major. The first (Op. 5) was written in 1872 and the second (Op. 81) fifteen years later between August and October 1887, when Dvořák truly felt himself to be an acclaimed maestro and, which is even more important, a master of the national style.
The first movement of the Quintet Op. 81 begins deceitfully, as if it were a romance for cello and piano. This impression fades very quickly indeed. Regardless of the “correct” sonata form, this movement is full of surprises and even appears to be somewhat chaotic. Dvořák tries to surprise his audience, introducing new themes and new styles (such as the secondary theme, in the spirit of Brahms).
On the other hand, the three other movements are very integral and very Czech in terms of style. The second movement is a meditation with typical Slavonic lyricism. It is one of the most lengthy and carefully developed meditations in the entire brief history of the genre. In the third movement Dvořák transforms the traditional scherzo into a furiant. Or the reverse: he transforms a furiant into a scherzo, radically simplifying the rhythm of this Czech dance. The music of the finale also has a vividly expressed national character and is extremely remote from the world’s problems.
Anna Bulychova